The Journey (29 page)

“Legal action is pointless. The state comes before justice. The only avenue you can pursue is an unequivocal plea for mercy to the spider. But don’t get your hopes up!”

“Where can I find the spider?”

“That I don’t know. But it’s everywhere. It has as many legs as its web has strands. You only need to tremble and he’ll show up.”

“I’m trembling already.”

“It only comes when it wants to suck up a meal. Then you can ask him. Yet by then it’s already too late, because the spider doesn’t listen once he arrives.”

Caroline flees the lost and found and runs off. She sits in her room on the bed. She can’t go to a spider from which one has to stay hidden. Ida’s space is empty. Everything sucked away. Only the uncovered straw mattress lies there. Whatever she left behind is already tucked away into Caroline’s luggage. Ida nonetheless has been put on display in the Natural History Museum. She has been laid there in spirit. No, she is in the Technology Museum. The spider has brought her there. Now the old machine is taken apart. The professionals decipher the inscription on the boiler. There stands the name of the firm that supplied the machine:

It’s actually not been a hundred years. One exaggerates so easily. The machine can no longer be operated. It looks to be a broken-down watch. Not even the best doctor can wind the spring. It has been ruined. The clock hand is broken off and bent. The conservator says: “I’ve never seen such a badly handled watch.” Not even after sixty years would such a piece be so badly damaged through regular wear and tear. Naughty children must have played with it. That’s the fault of a bad upbringing, one in which the younger generation never has to take piano lessons. The rhythm is lost, everyone bangs away however he wants to. It’s a cultural outrage when a rheumatic timepiece is not properly handled. Now it’s too late, not even an oil bath can do any good. All of the components need to be designed anew, but that would be much too expensive, and the doctors wouldn’t even know what to do. The war has bankrupted everyone. Diet
alone cannot accomplish very much when the intestines are already rotten. All the medicine is sold out. The director of the museum is not a cruel person, but nonetheless he adamantly shakes his head.

“We have to display the work as is. Maybe after the war we can have a specialist from America come. There the ability of watchmakers has apparently made great strides in recent years. One takes the living heart out of the machine, operates, allows artificial breathing to proceed throughout, and sets a new ruby heart back in.”

“Yes, it’s marvelous what the human race can accomplish. It’s a stunning success and keeps going on. Now give me back my sister!”

“You mean the timepiece?”

“My sister!”

“I see, then, the watch. We don’t release broken items. We have to be mindful of the firm’s good name. Damaged goods would immediately draw attention and would spark the interest of the unkind press.”

“I will take my sister as she is. I will not hold you responsible.”

“But the papers will!”

“I swear, I will say nothing to the reporter!”

“You cannot prevent that. The reporter will find a reason to interrogate you.”

“I won’t speak to any of them.”

“Nobody can keep his mouth shut. Pressure will be applied. Nobody is strong enough to keep silent under the pressure of a painful interrogation.”

“We’re not living in the Middle Ages. Torture was done away with in all civilized societies in the eighteenth century.”

“You don’t know reporters or states. Because of your ignorance this discussion is over. Off with you!”

“But I don’t have a tram ticket.”

Yet the director is already gone and does not answer, no matter how loud Caroline calls out. Only machines are there, powerful flywheels, pistons, dowels, rods, blueprints, hearts, kidneys, powder, whale bones, knights’ armor, suitcases, fire pumps, medicines, artificial spiders, inlaid pianos, corkscrews, tossed-away train tickets, pendulum clocks, and a seized-up printing press from the Middle Ages. The rest of Ida is not to be found, no matter how much Caroline looks underneath all the spider
webs, thinking that perhaps someone could have stowed Ida away amid the museum’s junk. Then Caroline grows sad, tears run, the nose drips, the face gray and dirty, the abandoned sister grabs a handkerchief with the monogram
IS
on it to wipe her nose and eyes. Ida had left the handkerchief behind so that it is easier for Caroline to cry. Hopefully Ida has brought along enough handkerchiefs so that she doesn’t need to borrow one while sniffling. She didn’t want to take along more than a dozen. Caroline needed to send this one to her, for the needlework on it is especially beautiful. Caroline will have to ask the guard at hell’s gate herself, for Paul is a clumsy ox when it comes to such things. All it will take is a little bit of money pressed into Hades’ hand and before you know it the handkerchief will be dipped in the waters of Lethe. Caroline was ready to sacrifice everything for her sister.

But in fact it is much too late to help. Ida has disappeared into a coffin and the funeral is over. All of the coffins have been carried off, the funeral songs have ceased. The hearse has left, the barrier is let fall. Ida is gone, Ruhenthal has ejected her, she is hidden and gone forever. But now everything goes back to normal. Leopold is still alive and wants some bread. The clock hands turn, the spider sets twelve legs on the face of the clock, yet the hand keeps turning. The days go on, bobbing merrily along. Ida never existed. Caroline has merely dreamt her up. Everyone was dreaming, they were mistaken and now disappointed, all is lost, the song over. Ida and Leopold, Paul and Zerlina, everyone and all, and so Caroline weeps and cannot hide her feelings away any longer.

Zerlina walks fast at first, then more slowly. It’s not that bad of a town, as long as one doesn’t look too close. The buildings and courtyards are picturesque and bear witness that people once lived here who innocently sat in the their rooms or hurried along the streets, since nothing ever changed. Everyone went about his daily business, used to doing so without worry, for each knew he was from Ruhenthal and was born here. It was all so wholesome and reliable that each inhabitant of the city was capable of fulfilling his position in life. Each evening he stood in the middle of his open doorway, lit a pipe, looked on and observed people passing by whom he greeted and engaged in small talk. Mutsch the cat jumped up, stretched her hind legs, yawned, bent back her tail, and lithely rubbed her shoulder against a pant leg. And so the man stood there in squat fashion, content
within himself as he guarded the domain he knew to be his own because it never fell from sight. Then a woman called out, whose ample backside swayed back and forth leisurely before disappearing into the darkness of the house. The owner then retreated into the safety of his cave, sitting down at his accustomed spot at the table in order to shovel food into his mouth and chew it deliberately. Meat and beets were tastefully prepared, the rewards of honest work.

Zerlina looks hard at the former occupant. He doesn’t pay any attention to Zerlina because he doesn’t notice her. He goes about his business as always, which only shows that, for him, the number of ghosts in Ruhenthal is undiminished to this day. Has the old man slept through these times? He must have, because he doesn’t see that only the frame of his house remains, the contents having disappeared. Together with his family members he hauled them off himself. It’s unimaginable that he doesn’t know this and still remains here. Is he dead? No, he’s breathing like anyone living. He doesn’t look up when Zerlina waves at him, he smokes, even though it’s forbidden here, and overall he doesn’t seem disturbed that he no longer belongs in Ruhenthal. Zerlina wants to convince him that it’s a mistake for him to be here. Most likely he just became greedy because he must have known what everyone knew once he had been compensated and another home had been assigned to him. He didn’t leave completely of his own free will, though he still did so freely and with the help of the authorities who made the disruption and relocation easier for him. He had also solemnly signed his name on the contract with his own ink and named another place, which in the future would be his home. And thus that’s where he would be, having sworn to it before witnesses, and there is where his mail is sent, there anyone can find him who is looking for him.

A heavy-duty furniture wagon pulled up in front of his house and loaded up all his belongings. Not even so much as a single broom straw remained, the bathtub was yanked out, the furnace was hauled off, the fixtures were ripped from the walls. Only doors emptied of their keys and the marred wall paintings did not abandon the place since they had more loyalty to the house than to the outcast man. The owner had also taken along his family, an old father, a wife, three children, a sister. They all carried bags, full suitcases, each of them amply fitted out. Thus they walked out the door carefree, after which the children smashed a couple of windowpanes
only for the pleasure of celebrating a happy departure. The emigrants didn’t climb onto the furniture wagon, but instead walked slowly to the town hall, where they turned in their house keys. Then they got onto a bus that took them straight to the train station.

Why then is the owner here again when he’s had a new home for the past two years? Zerlina wants to talk to him, but though she can hear her own voice speaking clearly, the owner doesn’t appear to hear her. He simply stands there and doesn’t respond. It could be that he only wants to know what had happened to his house. He wants to sample the misery that has brewed here. He paces incessantly back and forth across the room, yet he speaks with no one. Is he too proud? Perhaps in the last two years he’s had to move again. Zerlina tries to grab hold of his arm. Mister, mister, stand still for a moment! Are you nothing but a delusion? All too often Zerlina is deluded. In the room the old women sit, herded together on the hard edges of their bed frames. Zerlina stands before a woman who, with a needle in her hand, searchingly and worrisomely and yet without understanding looks upward. Zerlina doesn’t move and whispers quietly.

“It will never be fine again, Mother. Everything is changed. Perhaps it will one day be as it once was, but not for us. We’re done for. We’re through.”

Zerlina turns around, looks out the window at the dismal yard, and turns back again. She opens her suitcase, picks up the lute ribbons and other mementos, strokes them with her fingers, packs them once again, and closes the suitcase. She shoves it under the bed while biting her lip. Zerlina straightens up, takes a cloudy mirror from a shelf, blows on it several times, holds it up to her face out of curiosity, but then closes her eyes because she no longer recognizes herself, and lays the mirror facedown on a different shelf behind her bed. Zerlina turns around anxiously and sees again the woman with the needle in her hand. That’s her mother, and next to her sits her aunt, who doesn’t look up at all. What are the two women doing? They are darning stockings and whispering to each other. It’s impossible to understand a single word. Zerlina wants to tell the women something, but she changes her mind because she feels the women wouldn’t understand her, and so she silently leaves the room. Zerlina can smell the air that rises heavy and sweet above the rubbish heap. Zerlina stands by herself in the gloomy foyer and thinks to herself. She feels the
cold sweat upon her brow and shivers. She flexes her fingers, which hurt because they are so stiff. And then Zerlina can hold back the tears no longer.

Zerlina sees Frau Lischka before her, who has just dragged herself up the steps. It’s clear that she has something nasty to say and is ready to make fun of Zerlina for standing there on the stoop like an abandoned schoolgirl rather than sitting in her room as she was supposed to, like the rest of the inhabitants. Zerlina feels there is no way out. One can jump over the barrier only at the risk of one’s life. Whoever tries it will be shot. Once life was radiant, Zerlina had spread her feathers, she was the young golden girl whom Frau Holle
*
praised, but now everything is shut down, the feathers are locked away, even though Zerlina had constantly tried to spread them. Then Frau Holle became angry and turned her into the bad girl on whom the gooey tar stuck. Gooey tar also lies on the streets, her shoes getting stuck within it. Zerlina kicks off her shoes, but even barefoot she can’t move forward. Everything is so dirty, tar raining down continually. Frau Holle knows no mercy. Tar, tar, nothing but tar, the tarred eyes staring into the raven black night and seeing nothing but tar.

It is also bitter cold on the streets. The black scarf wrapped around her head is no protection against the wind and tar and cold, and it makes the face so old and ugly. The mirrors hanging on the walls have gone black, not a single stream of light beams through that the blackened mirrors could reflect. Her fingernails have grown long. They are brittle spider legs, they are wires, broom straws. Zerlina must burrow through dirt with them. The bug squirms around on the floor and is happy to do so. If Zerlina holds her breath, she hears the bug moving around. The people have run off, they cannot fend off the crawling pests. The people are not protected by a good fairy. Only an old witch sits in the corner and combs the lice out of tangled locks with the last teeth of a rusted comb. She throws the lice into the night. How can anyone believe or say that he still makes his home in Ruhenthal?

The owner has fled; nor has Mutsch the cat stuck around. She no longer purrs, she struts and snorts, she stretches her black coat and shakes herself. Then she howls and jumps over the barrier and takes off right
behind the owner. After the leap by Mutsch the cat no other escape is possible. High walls built out of black bricks are erected around the circumference of the town and are topped with spikes smeared in tar. Nobody can get out. Full of doubt, desires rise in the darkness, fluttering on the wings of the bat, wanting to climb higher and pass over the wall, but it’s hopeless! A thick dragnet is spread across, woven by the witch from her own saliva. Then the delicate skin of the wings is ripped, the desires can no longer hover, they flutter wearily and miserably in the sky trap that has been lowered onto the city, black and impenetrable and ghostly, the witch giggling in a voice that has a thousand cracks, shooting down the wishes with her pea shooter, the wishes falling upon the roofs and streets, falling and freezing. It’s better, young lady, that you bury yourself. You stand at the edge of a grave that you have dug with your long fingernails, so plop in where it’s damp and cool. Soon you will be asleep, the journey will end, there Holle the witch will bury you.